Intel News Archives

Intel's open-source Compute Runtime stack for OpenCL and oneAPI Level Zero on their graphics processors has been bringing up Nova Lake support since January. With today's release of the Intel Compute Runtime 26.22.38646.4, the Nova Lake Xe3P support has matured to the state of it being advertised now as under an "early support" status.

The newest open-source project out of Intel is the Intel Performance Skills project that is providing AI agent skills to help with CPU performance analysis and performance optimizations on Linux.

Among Intel's ongoing reduction in open-source projects they maintain, their BigDL open-source project focused on running large language models across Intel XPUs from Core Ultra laptops to discrete GPUs to cloud / data center hardware all in a low-latency manner, is being ended.

Released on Friday was the newest version of Intel Thermald, the thermal daemon developed by Intel for their processors on Linux for monitoring and helping control temperatures across modern Intel-powered laptops and desktops. Catching me immediately by surprise was Intel Thermald 2.5.12 introducing support for ARM.

Intel's Open Image Denoise is the open-source project providing a high performance denoising library for ray-tracing and used by the likes of Blender and other renderers/creative apps for powerful denoising capabilities. Released last week was Open Image Denoise 2.5 with some very nice performance improvements for Intel GPUs.

Just a week after the release of Intel XPU Manager 1.3.7, Intel today released XPU Manager 2.0 as a major overhaul for this software for monitoring and management of their data center GPUs on Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Going back to the launch of 1st Gen Xeon Scalable processors in 2017 was Intel Key Protection Technology (KPT) promoted and there have been Key Protection Technology references in QuickAssist (QAT) documentation since 2016. Surprisingly we are only now seeing Key Protection Technology references for the upstream Linux QAT driver as Intel engineers prepare for their next-gen "Gen6" QuickAssist hardware support.

Along with some GCC compiler tuning for Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids to deal with some new APX capabilities not proving beneficial for performance, new patch activity today is preparing GCC for function multi-versioning (FMV) for the AVX10.2 and APX instruction set extensions.

Intel this week rolled out new versions of their open-source XPU Manager and Linux NPU driver software.

Ahead of Intel Diamond Rapids server processors launching in 2027, the Linux kernel continues getting into shape for these next-gen Xeon processors. The latest enablement work taking place for Diamond Rapids is readying the Error Detection And Correction (EDAC) driver support for propagating memory errors/correction information under Linux.

Intel open-source software engineers have been busy beginning to prepare their upstream IWLWIFI wireless driver in the Linux kernel for supporting their next-gen WiFi adapters supporting the WiFi 8 "Ultra High Reliability" standard.

Some compiler tuning merged today to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is disabling some features of Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) for upcoming Intel Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids processors as they are not proving worthwhile for performance.

Introduced in Linux 7.1 is a dedicated CRTC background color property for DRM graphics/display drivers. The "BACKGROUND_COLOR" property can be used with capable drivers and display controllers as the default background color when not covered by any plane or from transparent regions of higher planes. With the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel cycle, the Intel DRM driver will begin supporting this background color property.

For those still making use of Intel Sandy Bridge processors from 15 years ago, the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel is bringing a fix for an engine reset issue when using the old integrated graphics with Sandy Bridge.

Back in March was an initial patch series out of Intel for Linux support for Directed Package Thermal Interrupts as a new feature of recent Intel CPUs. There wasn't much to report over the past three months on this work but today a second iteration of the patches emerged on the Linux kernel mailing list.

Ahead of Computex, Intel today announced the introduction of the Arc G-Series. While taking on the "Arc" branding, this isn't a new graphics card from Intel but rather their new processors with integrated graphics for handheld gaming devices.

A feature that has been worked on for a while now by Intel Linux engineers is for allowing run-time updates of the Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX) module without having to reboot the running server. For Linux 7.2 it looks like that feature will be all-set for allowing the easier roll-out of security updates and the like for this confidential computing capability on modern Intel Xeon servers.

A set if 17 patches were posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list for introducing a new tool in the kernel source tree, pmtctl. This new pmtctl tool is for interfacing with Intel Platform Monitoring Technology.

An exciting Intel innovation expected to be added for the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel is introducing the new USB4STREAM protocol for USB4/Thunderbolt as a "super simple" way to "basically just transfer raw packets from one host to another". This can be useful for quickly backing up a system from one host to another, sharing of web cameras or other peripherals across systems, or other environments where not having networking or wanting to avoid the traditional Linux networking stack.

With Intel having been one of the most dominant open-source contributors for years across the software ecosystem, months after they began sunsetting various software projects no longer aligned with today's Intel, they continue formally sunsetting/archiving different open-source projects.

Open-source Intel software engineers today sent out their latest round of Xe kernel graphics driver updates to DRM-Next for queuing ahead of next month's Linux 7.2 merge window.

While it has been nearly seven years since Apple acquired the Intel Mobile Communications' smartphone modem business and fifteen years since Intel acquired the wireless solutions division of Infineon, in 2026 we might see mainline Linux kernel support for the out-of-date XMM6260 modem.

Intel software engineers today rolled out the llm-scaler-vllm PV v1.4 as the Docker build of their latest software stack for those wishing to run vLLM in a pre-configured, performant setup on their Arc (Pro) Graphics hardware.

The fix is set to land in the upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel so the P-core-only Bartlett Lake processors will not report bogus maximum frequency values.

Yet more open-source Intel software projects have been formally archived. Over the past year Intel has formally discontinued a number of open-source projects it formally maintained. Many of them were already dormant and not too noteworthy but there were also some more notable ones discontinued like their legendary Clear Linux, Software Defined Silicon, Optane Memory software projects, and then other efforts like open ecosystem community/evangelism. This past week yet more Intel software projects were formally disbanded.

The latest Intel Xe kernel graphics driver patches for Linux now indicate multiple PCI IDs for the upcoming Crescent Island "CRI" accelerators rather than just a lone model.

A new patch for the Linux kernel posted today by Intel has outed "Panther Lake R" as a ruggedized variant of Panther Lake intended for harsh environments.

I have been writing about the Cache Aware Scheduling work led by Intel engineers on the Linux kernel for more than a year. I've also tested out Cache Aware Scheduling on both Intel and AMD CPUs with the patched Linux kernel to great success. And thus very happy to see the Cache Aware Scheduling patches inching closer to the mainline Linux kernel.

Since Intel Meteor Lake has been the Intel Silicon Security Engine to serve as a silicon root-of-trust for secure firmware loading, boot measurements, and similar functionality. This Intel Silicon Security Engine has been built on with Lunar Lake and Panther Lake as well as set to take on more importance with future Intel hardware platforms. We are now seeing a Linux driver come for this silicon RoT with the Intel Silicon Security Engine Interface (ISSEI).

Intel on Tuesday released a new version of their open-source Compute Runtime for OpenCL and Level Zero support across their integrated and discrete graphics hardware.

For years Intel has been developing the Low Power Mode Daemon "LPMD" to help their hybrid laptop and desktop CPUs deliver optimal power efficiency under Linux. Intel LPMD leverages hardware hints and other features for optimizing active idle power of the processor and putting the system into lower power modes where possible. This tool could soon call the Linux kernel source tree its new home.

The Intel Graphics Compiler "IGC" 2.34.4 release is out today as this compiler used by the Intel Compute Runtime for Level Zero and OpenCL compute on Intel graphics hardware plus is also used as the graphics shader compiler under Windows.

Merged as part of the perf subsystem fixes overnight is enabling Auto Counter Reload (ACR) functionality for upcoming Intel Xeon Diamond Rapids processors. This ACR enabling for Diamond Rapids "DMR" is happening in time for Linux 7.1-rc3 on Sunday while the work is also marked for back-porting to existing stable kernels.

With Intel's recently-launched Bartlett Lake P-core-only processors intended for the embedded market, there is a rather surprising oversight under Linux: the Intel P-State driver reporting a 7.0+ GHz clock speed. While many would yearn for a 7GHz CPU, the Core 9 273PE where this issue was discovered in reality can only boost up to 5.7GHz for its maximum turbo frequency.

Exciting yesterday in the land of Intel's open-source Vulkan driver "ANV" for Linux systems was introducing experimental support for descriptor heaps with the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap extension. Today there is another separate exciting development for this open-source Intel driver: Vulkan device generated commands are finally merged!

Now that the Linux v7.1 merge window is well past, Intel kernel graphics driver engineers are busy prepping new feature code for introduction for targeting the Linux 7.2 kernel this summer.

After the merge request was open the past three months for code originally authored eight months ago, the Intel "ANV" open-source Vulkan driver for Linux systems is now advertising support for descriptor heaps with the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap extension. But for the moment at least it's treated as experimental.

Merged to the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver with Linux 7.1 is an addition to improve the video RAM memory pressure or out-of-memory behavior for Intel graphics with dedicated video memory. Introduced is support for purgeable buffer objects via a new user-space API to provide usage hints for enhancing what is purged under vRAM pressure. Merged this week to Mesa 26.2-devel is support for the Intel Mesa drivers to make use of this new interface.

Intel's upcoming Crescent Island product as a reminder is a new inference-optimized Xe3P graphics card with 160GB of vRAM and targeting enterprise AI workloads. Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver engineers continue to be very busy enabling the driver support for Crescent Island as well as making broader Xe3P improvements.

One of the last feature pulls merged by Linus Torvalds prior to tagging Linux 7.1-rc1 this weekend were some power utility updates for those tools living within the kernel source tree.

Over the past number of months there has been a steady flow of Intel open-source projects archived on GitHub amid the corporate restructuring at the company and realigning of their open-source focus. This week another batch of Intel open-source projects were formally archived.

As part of Intel's LLM-Scaler initiative for AI inferencing on Intel Arc hardware, out today is their vllm-0.14.0-b8.2 update that includes officially supporting the Arc Pro B70 graphics card.

Intel today published their official quarterly feature release to their open-source Media Driver providing Video Acceleration API (VA-API) support on Linux.

The IRDMA driver as Intel's modern Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) Linux driver for their high-end Ethernet network controllers is preparing support for new hardware.

Out today is the Intel Compute Runtime 26.14.37833.4 that now includes production support for the newly-launched Wildcat Lake cut-down Panther Lake SoCs that debuted last week as the Core Series 3.

Intel today formally announced the Core Series 3 low-end mobile processors previously known as Wildcat Lake. These are the new Intel 18A offerings that are a step below the Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" SoCs that began shipping earlier this year.

In addition to Linux 7.1 supporting FRED by default for Flexible Return and Event Delivery, another Intel CPU feature now in good shape for this next kernel version is Linear Address Space Separation (LASS).

As a follow-up to the news first-covered on Phoronix earlier this month about Linux 7.1 expected to begin removing i486 CPU support: it indeed happened. Linus Torvalds took the initial removal bits today without any fuss today for beginning the phase out of M486 / M486SX / ELAN kernel support.

It was just a few days ago that Jay was publicly posted as the new shader compiler in-development for Intel GPUs on Linux for both their ANV Vulkan and Iris Gallium3D drivers. While still very experimental, that initial Jay compiler code was merged today for Mesa 26.1-devel.

The Intel IVPU accelerator driver used on Linux for the neural processing unit (NPU) on Core Ultra SoCs saw a patch posted for allowing the NPU clock frequency to be limited in the name of power and thermal management.